He shall go un-named because naming authors is against forum rules but…

I’ve been duped. One VH author approached the AJ forums a few weeks ago looking for custom audio for his project. Several authors messaged him or left comments on his forum post. He messaged me from my profile to tell me he wanted me to write the music. I worked for a couple weeks on this track for his item. I gave him several different options, he would offer critiques and I would make the changes and send him new options. We sent several emails back and forth. This went on for a little while (and was tiresome and got to be a little much…I started to wonder if it was worth it) but ended up with one I was rather happy with and sent him this latest option. It was at that last option that I sent him that he said he was very busy lately and would get back to me as soon as he wasn’t busy.

Well, tonight I went on his page to find this item to have been approved with music similar to what I was writing (but I guess was closer to what he wanted) with the approval date around the time he said he was busy and would get back to me soon. Well, it turns out he had at least one more author (I’m guessing more) working on music for the item at the same time, probably leading them on as if they were the only ones creating the music for him. These AJ authors I’m sure were excited to be able to collaborate with this rather successful VH author that has caught some fire lately. I sure was.

This is just bad business sense and ethics. Things like these just get under my skin. He didn’t ever have to go with my music, but he did need to communicate more openly with me. He did owe me that, as he led me to believe something that was untrue – that I was his composer he chose for this project. It’s important that we all take our craft seriously. But more importantly, we must learn to treat people right. I wrote him quite the email but this is the last couple of lines in the email I wrote him. I feel like this is what we need to learn from this, including myself:

“You have the ability to do a lot of good because you know your stuff. And you have the ability to bring along a lot of people, to learn from you. Please know that your actions speak louder than your words. You can do a lot of harm to people by treating them poorly.”

Do good work and treat people well. Nice people always go far.

Hang in there,
Phil

p.s. I’ve met MANY great VH authors, this is not anything against the VH authors. This is just one guy among thousands of authors among all the marketplaces.

Learned the hard way that without a detailed contract you’ll just get taken advantage of either intentionally or unintentionally because the client does not fully comprehend what’s involved in completing their project.

WPHead said
Sucks and why I stopped freelancing.
Learned the hard way that without a detailed contract you’ll just get taken advantage of either intentionally or unintentionally because the client does not fully comprehend what’s involved in completing their project.

You’re right. However, he was a bit of musician and knew what was involved at least a little. He was just more concerned with his project than the people he was working with. Your right in that it gets a little risky without a contract involved. I really thought it was going to be a quick collaboration like most of mine are with other VH authors. It just wasn’t this time. Thanks for understanding!

AndrVlad said
Ask for 50% prepayment unless you are OK to work for free.

NikolaSusa said
Been there.
Now i always demand/ask for a 30% on the start, 30% on the half and the rest just before i send the files.

I wasn’t getting paid. I was going to create the audio for his VideoHive project and release on AudioJungle. He was going to point his buyers to my AudioJungle item. But the hope was that all the work would pay off in the end…

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